this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29244629

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I've used them about a year and glad to see this kind of improvement. They are not perfect but still much better than the free options so far.

Only concern I've had has been around the AI stuff they are providing... So far it's optional and a separate piece from the normal search. Time will tell there I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 weeks ago

At the very least their AI Integration Philosophy has a good and nuanced view on the topic. So as long as they actually stick to that those ideas when integrating features it should be fine.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 weeks ago

I love Kagi and gladly pay for it. Nice devs too.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago

Kagi is goshin' awesome.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

“Paid search engine” <— no thanks.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Suit yourself. They aren't perfect but I find value in them so far.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

freemium pls :cry:

although good freemium examples like proton mail for example seem too good to be true with free vpn and all the jazz. always such a shady feeling when using such services

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They have a trial for 100 searches iirc. And they also occasionally share referral links to subscribers that are 3 month premium subs to share with friends so they can try

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

This is how I discovered I search around 20 times a day. Burned through it pretty quick haha

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

If you're not paying, you're the product.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not paying for my self hosted searxng and I have more control over my search than any kagi user.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well you are paying for the hosting you're just not paying for the service

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It's very lightweight, any toaster could run a single user searxng instance.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If you’d like to give away any free toasters with hackable embedded microcontrollers to prove your point here, I’m a willing recipient and will attempt setup of a searx instance.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

if you are paying, you are still the product

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago

There is a free trial and there was 1 month for free 2 months ago. You can try it and see if you think its worth the price

I tried it and i personally believe its not worth the price, but testing it is better than just refusing the concept from the start

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

Fine for you. I’m just glad there’s an option besides “sell your soul” and “invest hundreds of hours and dollars into self-hosting”.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Upvoted.

I have a counterpoint to those claiming that paid are better. By using a privacy oriented search engine, then they don't know exactly who you are. In theory just your IP. Maybe fingerprinting.

When paying they know exactly who you are. You have to trust them.

So in one case you can protect yourself, in the other you have to trust them.

Also, Kagi also uses the Russian index Yandex 😑

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Interesting, thanks for sharing

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
  1. Log into browser extension with kagi account

  2. generate tokens

  3. use said tokens

How does this ensure privacy? The tokens are associated to your account from the start.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

There’s a link in the second paragraph to the technical details, including source code for the implementation and documentation for the required infrastructure.

But the tl;dr is that the tokens aren’t associated to your account. Unless you were able to snoop on the original request that generated the tokens (in which case, you’ve got bigger issues!), there’s no way to prove that a token is related to a specific account. A token only proves that an authorization server once granted access to some account.

Edit: Wikipedia has a good intro:

Non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs are cryptographic primitives, where information between a prover and a verifier can be authenticated by the prover, without revealing any of the specific information beyond the validity of the statement itself.

Edit 2: You should not be catching downvotes. You had a reasonable question.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There’s a link in the second paragraph to the technical details

I'm reminded of this mindset from the crypto scam surge.

Points at technical documents

"Well, it says it's secure so quit arguing that it's not secure"

Typically followed by

"If someone traced you/robbed you, then you were just doing it wrong"

Like, we've got high level white house officials feeding national security secrets to the Israelis because they just blindly implemented a "secure" Signal extension. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised people don't look past the cover.

But come on. "You can just buy some tokens and then you're secure" is painfully naive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

I’m out here trying to answer reasonable questions techie folks might have about the most promising possibility I’ve seen so far for getting our normie families off of Google.

What are you here for? Calling people naive pseudo-scammers? Get out of here.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I love to mock people who use the library by shouting "If you're not the payer then you're the product!"

Westerners are so baby-brained on this shit. Kagi can take your money and still spy on you. Yandex can not take your money and still not bother caching your search history, because there's no good way for them to monetize it. Nevermind GitHub or Wikipedia or literally any other public good being hosted on any website anywhere.

The delusion that you're safe using a free service is matched only by the delusion that you're protected because you paid someone money.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

More like yes please, I get better results and better customization, and no ads or paid results.

It makes my life easier and speeds my workflows up. And unlike free alternatives I almost never find myself reverting to Google.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

If free alternatives make you Fever to Google, why not just use Google? It’s always free

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Do they have the equivalent for Lemmy?

E: Found it using Kagi... It just wasn't turned on for me.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

good stuff! this is the exposure we need

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Does anyone still think their data isn't being sold even if they pay for a service? Plus now it's associated to your payment information. These are the same guys that spent all their runway funding on Tshirts, I don't think they're the sharpest knives in the drawer.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does anyone still think their data isn’t being sold even if they pay for a service?

Very possible they're too small to have a meaningful contingent of buyers. But I wouldn't bank on it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Apparently we're in the minority. Everyone here is sure it's all aboveboard and shipshape.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You can use privacy pass and pay in crypto

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I'm not fathoming what Privacy Pass gains you, it's tokens generated from your account, the chain of possession is obvious throughout. The tokens get used up and removed from your account and the logged-in browser extension generates more, but there's no "privacy" involved there.

Fair enough on the crypto.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

The tokens can't be traced to the account and are batch generated so you can't be deanonymized by correlation. They aren't stored in the account, but locally, in fact Kagi can (and they say they will) just sell the tokens directly, as they aren't linked at all to an account

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Kagi literally documents how this works in their blog post about it: https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-privacy-pass

Perhaps you should start reading before writing?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

You obviously didn’t read how privacy pass works

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Using Kagi genuinely makes me happier, if only because I don’t have to look at a ton of garbage before I find what I need. It’s pleasant to use.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

I use Yandex a lot now for not censoring me. Maybe I'll have to try this.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It is funny to see people relentlessness stanning a paid service that's built on a notoriously fraud prone crypto stack, then getting paranoid about something about as sophisticated as Lexus Nexus because it's hosted out of Evil Country.

I hope nobody here bothers to interogate where their torrents are being hosted from too closely.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not a spy or part of the government, but Yandex is Russian... I tried them like 10 years ago, but I wouldn't take my chances with them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Its a search engine, what are they going to do, give some guys search history to Putin?

I generally use it for finding streaming sites.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Yandex has plenty of services just like Google. They have an email service, cloud storage, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Any service requires investment, though. What pays Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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